Page 5 of Red Hawk's Woman

“Too incredible for you?”

“It is so.” Again, Rutledge hesitated, and Effie held her breath. Her father, still not knowing of his young audience, went on to say, “My dear friend, Trent Clark, mentioned that the tribe reappears in the flesh for one day about every twenty-five years—once a generation.”

“So you have said.”

“And if his calculations were correct,” continued Rutledge, “it would be about now that the tribe might reappear.”

“Reappear?”

“Aye, the people would become real again—for only a day. And if that be so, and if we can but see them, talk to them, it would be the first time in history that someone in our world has seen these people. Imagine…the present day coming into personal contact with the living past. Imagine what we might learn.”

Owens let out his breath in a loud slur, which sliced through the air, magnified because of the silence of the night.

Though the action might have been meant to put Rutledge off, it did not have that effect, for Effie’s father continued. “We are here at the right time and in the right place. It could happen.”

Effie caught her breath then placed her hand over her mouth in an ineffective attempt to block out the noise of her gasp. The sputtering of the fire must have hidden her mistake, for the two adults seemed oblivious to anything but their own conversation.

It could happen. The idea was mysterious, and even eight-year-old Effie could envision the outcome, the honor, the excitement of such a thing.

It was a long time before Rutledge spoke again. “Can you imagine what a find it would be to discover those people?”

“Aye,” agreed Owens, “that it would be. But who would believe us…you, might I ask? If the Clan only surfaces once a generation, and then disappears just as quickly?”

“Humph!” replied Rutledge. “Is it so important to be believed? Think for a moment of the opportunity if it were true, think of the questions we might ask those people, the knowledge we might acquire.”

“Yes, it would, indeed, be an unusual find. But we are not here to locate a live people. We are here to determine the past of this place and to find those artifacts. If it be a truth that the Lost Clan comes to light in this location, we will find evidence of it.”

“But, don’t you see? They would be of the past…and of the present.”

Owens snickered.

Effie’s father seemed unaware of his colleague’s displeasure. “Come, and let us go away to our beds. I believe our wives and our children are already fast asleep, and we must be up at the first light. Not only is there the history of a people to uncover, there is a chance we might discover them in the flesh.”

Owens laughed, but it was not one of pleasure. “I cannot say you have convinced me, but I am willing to believe in you, and since you judge that this is so, who am I to refute you?”

“Indeed!”

Effie heard the two men laugh. She could even imagine that they shook hands. Excitement twisted through her young body, making sleep all but impossible.

Turning over, she gazed at Lesley. Too bad the elder girl had missed the story. But Effie felt certain that on the morrow Lesley would taunt her until the entire thing was told.

Maybe she wouldn’t relate it.

The thought made Effie smile, since it was exactly what Lesley would do were their positions reversed. Effie yawned and, with the resilience of youth, soon drifted off to a dream filled with adventure.

Chapter

Two

Mahkwiyi Istikiop, or Wolf Creek

Montana Territory

Spring, 1850

Twelve-year-old Red Hawk awoke to the darkness of a new dawn. After reaching out from his sleeping robes, he pulled up the edge of the tepee’s bottom, and with a quick motion, glanced outside. As expected, the early hours were painted black, the only color discernible in a misty gray haze that hung over every organic and inorganic thing. The air was still, dull and uninviting, seeming to urge one to slither back into bed. But Red Hawk fought the impulse. There were chores to be done, responsibilities that were his alone to do.

He crawled out from under the tepee’s entrance flap and stood. The fog was heavy this day, lingering, as though it refused to give way to a new day. Striding forward into that mist, Red Hawk cut a glance upward.